For a long time, Zach Even-Esh did the same thing: he sat on his hands instead of reaching for the brass ring. At FilFest 2010, the colorful character from Dirty Jersey shared the story of how he learned that you have to go out and be aggressive and take chances—and yes, the story is about a girl.

Even-Esh learned from his experiences and committed himself to taking action and working hard, and he believes that’s the real secret of success—not intelligence or wealth or luck. To Zach, commitment and drive are more important than anything else. He calls this mentality being an “asskicker,” and it’s the reason he’s successful.

The CrossFit Journal is a chronicle of the empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed CrossFit program. Our mission is to provide a venue for contributing coaches, trainers, athletes, and researchers to ponder, study, debate, and define fitness and collectively advance the art and science of optimizing human performance.